Pain lanced through my body. My vision blurred at the edges, but my legs kept pumping, fueled by instinct and terror and the desperate, clawing need to find—
Father. Daddy. Someone.
Anyonewho could tell me what was happening.
I stumbled into the courtyard, nearly tripping over a fallen basket of vegetables. People were everywhere—on their knees, on the ground, being searched, being shielded, being shouted at. The armed strangers moved fast and with terrifying purpose,sweeping from building to building like they’d rehearsed this a hundred times.
My heart slammed against my ribs.
“Father!” I called out—a strangled sound, barely a word. “Father!” No one answered.
I ran harder.
One of our older members was face-down in the dirt, wrists cuffed behind him, his cheek pressed into the ground. He didn’t lift his head when I passed, but I could hear him whispering a prayer.
Sister Marin knelt nearby, arms wrapped around a sobbing toddler as two strangers shouted directions she was too panicked to understand.
Across the courtyard, I caught sight of a child—one of the littler ones—standing perfectly still in the middle of the chaos. His small hands hung limp at his sides. His eyes were huge, unblinking, fixed on the nightmare surrounding him. No one had noticed him frozen there yet.
I skidded to a stop, chest heaving, not sure if I should go to him—
But the panic pushed me onward.
I needed to find Father. He’d know what to do. He always knew. He’d fix this, he’d calm the chaos, he’d—
Except Father wasn’t here.
And my mind—my fractured, desperate mind—couldn’t decide if that truth was terrifying or relieving.
“Daddy!” I shouted next, voice breaking. “Jace!Daddy!”
Nothing. No familiar face. No reassuring voice. No hand reaching for mine the way his always did when no one was watching.
Only more shouting. More dust. More boots pounding the ground.
I ran past Sister Dahlia, who was being held back by two agents as she fought to get to her teenage son. Past Brother Silas, who knelt with his forehead pressed to the earth, tears streaking silently down his cheeks. Past the row of Inner Circle members—every one of them cuffed, kneeling, heads lowered.
“Elior!” A voice carried my name through the noise, but I couldn’t tell who it belonged to. The world was too loud, too bright, too close.
My steps faltered as my lungs seized.
Where were they?
Where were they?
Where were they?
“Father!” I cried again, raw desperation tearing at my throat. “Daddy!”
Still nothing.
The world tilted. My knees threatened to give out. The pain in my chest flared so sharply I stumbled into a wooden post, grabbing it for balance.
I gulped in a breath of dusty, dry air, burning my throat.
The chaos swirled around me, but I couldn’t move.
I couldn’t think.
